Lunatic Mode
Lunatic Mode is a difficulty setting that appears in Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem, Fire Emblem Awakening, and Fire Emblem Fates. It is a higher difficulty than Hard Mode and features Enemy Units that are even stronger, often capable of killing most of the Player Units in the beginning of the game and staying strong right until the end. This often forces players to field less units than normal to even have a chance of keeping ahead in the statistical arms race. Enemies on Lunatic will also look for ways to kill weaker units even if they are not in their attack range. In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the mode is known as Maddening Mode and was made available through a free patch. Differences of Lunatic to Hard Mode *There are slightly more enemies on Lunatic compared to Hard Mode, usually filling in empty locations or appearing in strategic locations where the player will need to kill them. There are also more enemy reinforcements, and several additional reinforcements may appear where they are not found on lower difficulties. *Enemy stats are slightly improved over Hard Mode. In Fates, equipment is added or modified on higher difficulties; for example, Iago in Chapter 26 of Conquest has a Hexing Rod added to his staff set. *Enemy weapon ranks are capped out for their current weapons. This means a Berserker in Fates already comes with an S Rank in Axes. However, if they reclass to a Hero, they will still have E Rank in Swords. *In Awakening and Fates, forged equipment starts appearing earlier. In addition, enemy units will carry more powerful forged weapons. It should be noted this only applies to skirmishes, as enemies do not carry forged weapons on the main route/paralogues/DLCs (excluding the DLC Apotheosis). **In Awakening, enemies in high-level areas (e.g areas like Warriors' Tomb) will be carrying forged weapons with bonuses that the player cannot achieve. **In Fates, enemies have forged weapons similar to that of Awakening, but the bonuses can be achieved by the player (though doing so is very time consuming). *Enemies will have extra skills added to them from Hard Mode, including enemy only skills. For example, in Awakening, Grima in The Future Past 3 will have Rightful God added to his skill roster. **In Fates, enemies do not see new skills as much in Birthright as in Conquest. In Conquest, most enemies typically have skills that make them very tedious to kill. *In Awakening, the strength of the Risen summoned from Reeking Boxes will be unaffected by chapter locations. *Enemy AI is improved drastically. In Fates, the AI will always attempt to perform Dual Attacks and will perform actions faster than on lower difficulties. *In Three Houses the Death Knight has the ability to move. Fire Emblem Spin-offs Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE In the Fire Emblem crossover/spin-off Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE, Lunatic Mode is included as an unlockable difficulty setting. If the player begins a New Game+ on the Lunatic difficulty, they will not keep any character levels, unlocked Carnages, or skills acquired in previous playthroughs, effectively forcing the player to start from statistical scratch. The player does keep the cosmetic-only costumes they have unlocked, and stores will sell all items from the start of the game instead of expanding their lists of wares over time. Fire Emblem Warriors In Fire Emblem Warriors, the Lunatic difficulty setting is unlocked after completing Story Mode. It is the hardest difficulty setting in the game, and enemies are far stronger and have more health than they do in the lower difficulty settings. Any Story Mode stage can be freely replayed on Lunatic.